Celebrating Oakham: 20 Years of Independence

Saturday 1st April 2017 marks exactly 20 years since Rutland regained its status as an independent county, having been a district of Leicestershire from 1974 until 1997.

Due to this the students made a trip to the local castle during a history lesson to learn about the castle and what it was used for within Oakham. During this visit, students got to make horse shoes for a display to mark this event and engage within the community of Oakham.

The staff at the castle where great and staff and students took part and fully enjoyed the lesson.

Our first activity was to look for old artefacts that have been found in Oakham when there have been digs. This is a selection of what items had been found. Such as bones, teeth and very special rocks formed many years ago.

The photo below shows a selection of students looking through the soil and cleaning it up to see what they had found.

The second activity involved the students making their own shields as this is what the soldiers would have used to protect them and the castle from any attacks. The pictures below show the students making shields from scratch and then getting to look and have photos taken with a real shield.

In the third task the students had to find where the correct horseshoe was from a list from all the horseshoes in the castle. It was a very impressive display. Here are the students looking around the castle at the different horseshoes trying to find the correct one.

The final task was to make the horseshoes for the display at Oakham castle.

These are the photos of our completed horseshoes on display at Oakham castle.